Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Now Here's An Interesting Idea...

Ellee Seymour reports HERE on the concept of Neighbourhood Courts. Great idea, as long as I can be the judge (and perferably the jury too!). Seriously, if we are to go down the 'localism' route, this is just the sort of innovation we should be looking at. I would have thought there ought to be a cross-party consensus that this would be a 'good thing'. I suppose the only worry is that we develop a Swiss-like set of rules and regulations which neighbours transgress at their peril and that it becomes a charter for the sad and the bad to impose their will on people who're just trying to live their lives. What do y'all reckon?

I love localism but I don't like this. There are too many puffed up idiots who'd jump at the chance of being on these for the feeling of a bit of power and to tell people what they think (a bit like blogs :).

What we really need is a police force responsible to the local community with sufficient financial support and public backing to do their job properly.

Hate to say it, but I spent a year studying this sort of thing, both in theory and in practice, at University, and I cannot see the point.

It pits neighbour against neighbour, lacks authority and cannot hand out punishments worth talking about. You could say it might work with very, very young offenders, but the Youth Courts aren't exactly busy, so why not let them handle it properly?

Didn't we have these and weren't they called magistrates' courts, before this government ruined them by appointing district judges and emasculating the remaining magistrates? You can't have the common man sitting in judgment on the common man, because he is so vicious with his fellow who he perceives as having transgressed. Justice requires the application of mercy otherwise it becomes vengenance and ceases to be legitimate or just.

RM - Obviously elected judges in the US are actual judges. People can't just walk in off the street and say, "I want to stand for Second District Court judge."

The point about the American system is, the judges are answerable to the voters - at the next election; our own judges live in a world of their own, absolutely isolated from the voters. I would prefer that the two be in touch.

The same with police chiefs and sheriffs. Police chiefs who don't perform in the US, in all states, get voted out of a job. So guess what. They perform. (And to do them justice, they come in intending to perform.)

Believe me, no Ian Blair could survive in his job in the US - in even a liberal state. The man is hopelessly confused about law enforcement - No 1 no-no in the US, and he lectures what would be his voting constituency. No 2 no-no.

Neighbourhood courts sounds too tribal ... too dated. If Blair hadn't ruined, as he has ruined everything that caught his magpie eye, our legal structure, with our magistrates'courts, this wouldn't even be up for discussion.

I couldn't agree more, and please don't think I was suggesting that US judges were unqualified.

But this concept of neighbourhood courts, coming as it does from someone who has publicly declared his admiration for Marx, sounds a little too much like the kangaroo "people's courts" one hears about in revolutionary banana republics for my liking.